Cyber Attack Floods Bulgarian Whistleblowing Site

The site for investigative journalism Bivol was down for over an hour after a hacker attack.

The independent site for investigative journalism Bivol.bg which published formerly classified documents, revealing that Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, has been a person of interest for the anti-mafia police in the 90s, became subject of a "flooding" attack.

One of the owners and editors of the site, journalist Assen Yordanov, told the Bulgarian news agency BGNES that Bivol has been attacked for over an hour by a very powerful, unknown site - anonine.com. The latter has generated tens of thousands of viewer requests, which had blocked access and brought the site down.

Yordanov assuaged the database has not been affected and the publications were intact.

"There is no doubt this is connected with the upcoming release of new documents from the Buddha file. We have also received quite a few threats, including anonymous ones, and phone calls with silence on the other end of the line," said he.

Sunday and Monday, Bivol published two documents revealing that in the 90s Borisov has caught the attention of the anti-mafia police over his alleged ties with the underworld.

The documents date from February, 1997, and December, 1996.

The 1997 shows that on February 24, 1997, the Central Services for Combatting Organized Crime, CSBOP "Internal Terrorism" Department has launched a case for operative surveillance (DON) against Boyko Metodiev Borisov. The case was listed under the alias "Buddha."

The other one is a proposal to recruit him as a secret agent of CSBOP.

On Monday, Borisov asked for the Buddha file to be declassified and denied having been an informant.

The documents have leaked anonymously through Bivol's platform Balkanleaks, which is modeled after the famous WikiLeaks, and have been revealed for the very first time.

Because of the anonymous platform, the journalists have no way of finding out where the documents came from and/or who has sent them.